Q Dear Miss Abigail:
Will I ever find my Mr. Perfect?
Signed,
Zeenat
A Dear Zeenat:
This reminds me of that song ~ “Looking for love in all the wrong places; looking for love in too many places; la la la…” ~ sorry, where was I going with that? Oh, yes. Mr. Perfect. Well, according to the following paragraphs from The Sex Life of Youth, it might be time to consider settling for a Mr. Less-Than-Perfect.
1948: Search For a Perfect Mate
In commencing the consideration of this topic it must be remembered that it is the marriage of two human beings that is being considered. No adjustment can be altogether perfect. At times, people are unduly concerned or remain unmarried because they cannot find an ideal mate who, in fact, could not exist outside their imagination. Nor would such a perfect mate be appropriate for the imperfect self one has to offer. Saying that love is blind may be related to this desire for perfection, and marriage, where either of the individuals is conscious of no defects or shortcomings in the loved one, can hardly be expected to satisfy every day reality. A man of middle age was heard to remark: ‘We have been married fifteen years and have never had a cross word.’ A young man who heard him replied: ‘What an impossible story! Either you are a terrible liar or you are living a very monotonous life.’
Thus often one seems to be hunting a mate for an ideal self instead of for the self he is. When he does so, he is frequently caught by an alternating sense that the person contemplated is both not good enough and too good for him. In other words, she (or he) is not good enough for the ideal self and too good for the actual self. Both considerations lack a sense of reality. We can never expect to find another who has no faults. Whether or not those faults will be barriers to the relationship will be determined by whether they stand out as constant irritations or whether they are “dear little human traits.” Experience would seem to show that a man or woman does not always love another in spite of his faults but often because of them.
Source: Elliot, Grace Loucks and Harry Bone. The Sex Life of Youth. New York: Association Press, 1948.
~ pp. 83-84 ~